Postal worker honored for 32 years of clean driving

Thursday

Jan 17, 2013 at 1:31 PM

By GEORGE AUSTIN

By GEORGE AUSTIN

Hathaway News Service

As a mail carrier for the last 32 years, Barbara Healy has driven a truck in "rain, sleet and snow," as the saying goes, but she has not been in one accident. For that, the National Safety Council has honored her.

Fall River Postmaster Arthur Bernier, who has been in the game one year longer than Healy, said he has never seen another employee earn the award from the council, which also recognized Healy having logged 1 million miles behind the wheel.

"I think it's remarkable," Bernier said during a recent presentation. "The Postal Service and its customers have benefited from your safety."

Healy has been a mail carrier in Somerset for five years, having worked the previous 27 in Fall River. She attributes her perfect driving record to "just paying attention," noting that driving in winter weather can be difficult. All these years, the people have made the job worthwhile, she said.

"I have great customers and nice dogs," she said.

Healy started working for the U.S. Postal Service during her summers off from college, but at the time did not anticipate making a career out of it. Times have changed in her business, with more of the operations becoming mechanized. Healy said it's up to carriers to sometimes catch the mistakes made by computer.

Officially, she's a mail carrier, but her job occasionally means having to serve in other ways,

"I watch out for my elderly customers," Healy said. "I've had two customers whose mail was piling up, I contacted their neighbors and they had fallen. They were both OK, so I was happy about that."

Michael Anderson, manager of the Somerset office, said Healy's clean record is especially significant because she drives six to seven hours a day, in all conditions.

Somerset Police Chief Joseph Ferreira said his officers respect the job that the mail carriers do and think it is amazing that someone could go 30 years without an accident.

"That's a really tremendous job that you did for 30 years," Ferreira told Healy at the presentation.

When she's not working, Healy drives a Subaru, is a professional artist and owns a German shepherd — a dog she adopted when someone on her postal route had to give it up. Healy retired from the U.S. Postal Service at the end of 2012.